June 23, 2012

Unless you believe that the primary function of the public sector is to be a jobs program, there is no reason to sweat recent cuts to public-sector jobs, whose numbers, as Mickey Kaus has pointed out, have "been bloating since around 1980."...

As it happens, Nobel-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and many others (let's call them stimulatarians), seem to believe that a key function of government is precisely to employ lots of people who otherwise would look for work elsewhere....

And check out the caricature of Obama at the first link. All swirly hallucinogenic shapes and psychedelic colors. I showed it to Meade and said "That's the way I was always drawing when I was in high school," and he said he did too. (I'm class of 1969, and he's '72.)

Teachers, cops and firemen. Everyone knows these are the only people government employs. Right? Because they're always the ones we're about to lose if we don't spend money.

Why would Romney, or anyone, criticize the partisans of public spending by using their own chosen words? There's a reason why Obastard chooses those three. There have to be six dozen easy examples of sad, worthless and destructive government types usable in the rebuttal.

I'm so tired of half assed, mealy mouthed, take it back tomorrow bullshit.

New York state is soon going to exist for no reason other than to service these people's pension funds and health benefits.

I live on a street with a fire station. They add a nice third world touch by parking on the sidewalks. Why are they allowed to do this and is the massive commuting infrastructure in this city beneath them (that is not a pun about the subway)?

Teachers in particular are about to get phased out in large numbers. With the advent of the internet students can have access to the greatest teachers on any subject just like they do the greatest athletes and entertainers. If one teacher does not explain things in a way that is understandable to you there will be plenty more who may have a more appealing approach.

What has delayed this revolution is the licensing and certification requirements along with the opportunity costs of having your time devoted to education spent in government mandated warehouses called schools. To this point to get a good education you had to pay for it twice... once through taxes and once to a private school. Soon you may not have to pay for it at all. Or at least the advertisers will be paying for it like they do for much of our entertainment.

With the economies of scale involved it will soon be possible to achieve much better results with many, many fewer teachers.

The self-starters and smart kids will no longer be held back and the dullards can go over the material as many times as they require. When personal attention is needed it will be much more focused since the teacher will not be spending a lot of time on preparing lessons or giving the same lesson over and over again.

Teaching is very much stuck in the 19th century model and it is due solely to the involvement of the government on such a massive scale.

"Not if we want the economy to recover any time soon," says Nick Gillespie at Reason.com.

One thing I've learned is that people like Gillespie could give a shit if what they believe in even works or not. If it's detrimental to a struggling economy [like Wisconsin, hello - the science is in], so be it. As long as Gillespie and Kaus are able to masturbate over the death of a government job - even if it's replaced by a private sector job that taxpayers have to pay more for. Look at Walker's reign of error in Milwaukee County. Taxpayers are still paying for his fuckups. Oh well!

"Unless you believe that the primary function of the public sector is to be a jobs program, there is no reason to sweat recent cuts to public-sector jobs, whose numbers, as Mickey Kaus has pointed out, have "been bloating since around 1980."..."

Isn't it established fact that for Democrats, one of the the primary function of the public sector is to be a jobs program?

"...what we need is to lessen government interference in the economy."

It is the proper and necessary role of government to manage the economy.

The ongoing financial catastrophe of the last several years is a direct result of the lessening of responsible government management and oversight of the actions of those whose activities make up the economy. Our lawmakers have capitulated almost entirely to the prerogatives of the financial elites and allowed them to commit great crimes of fraud and theft on the public.

There is no reason to believe the lies these criminal actors promulgate that even more abdication by the government of their role in overseeing the economy, i.e., less regulation, is necessary or will have a salutary effect on the health of the economy or that the criminal financiers--or let's just say, the financiers--will reign in their own criminality.

Does removing a police presence inspire the Mafia to change their ways?

"As long as Gillespie and Kaus are able to masturbate over the death of a government job - even if it's replaced by a private sector job that taxpayers have to pay more for."

It's an established, simple fact - not that you care, or could even comprehend - that public sector jobs drain wealth, rather than create it.

One of the great ironies today is that the leaching, parasite classes - those who rob the productive classes of wealth they create - are utterly disinterested in protecting the ability of the host to create more wealth to leach.

Let me make it simple for you:

It is in the interest of liberal Democrats and their dependents to foster economic growth and wealth creation so they can continue to pay for growth in the leaches.

If the leaches outgrow the productive classes (Kaus' point about the mushrooming public sector), they begin to cannibalize the economy and it soon dies.

But like I said, you don't understand this, nor would you care if you could, so carry on.

Not exactly, Cookie.This last "financial catastrophe" was engineered by the government, and Congress was the architect. Congress set the rules, and the folks in the "financial community" acted like people predictably do. There was nothing new about this. It wasn't our first bubble and won't be the last.

The left always cries that "This is not what we intended!", but the result was always predictable based on past experience. They just never learn.

"There is no reason to believe the lies these criminal actors promulgate that even more abdication by the government of their role in overseeing the economy, i.e., less regulation, is necessary or will have a salutary effect on the health of the economy or that the criminal financiers--or let's just say, the financiers--will reign in their own criminality."

Just from having been around for 52 years you get the impression that a significant percentage of folks do see the government as a jobs program. I think it makes perfect sense if you look at american economic behavior through the lens of of the best description I have ever heard of how american see the role of government in the economy and governments role in their lives: americans are capitalist on the upswing and stone socialist on the downswing.

Robert Cook said..."...what we need is to lessen government interference in the economy."

It is the proper and necessary role of government to manage the economy.

If you had stopped right there, you would be right, but you didn't and once again put up a straw man argument. Correction, you wrong from the start. It is not the job of government to manage the economy. It is the job of government to act as the umpire and fairly enforce the agreed upon rules. You seem to be of the opinion the the government's role should be to manage the economy and in order to be able to do that the government has to become the owner, manager, player and umpire of the team. As we saw that worked out brilliantly in the USSR and currently in North Korea and Cuba.

The left has a problem in conceptualizing scalability. Just because a bit of something is good does not translate in to a lot more is always better. The difference between a drug and a poison is the dosage.

Garage is just bitter because he see his gravy train heading to a derailment.

"One thing I've learned is that people like Gillespie could give a shit if what they believe in even works or not. If it's detrimental to a struggling economy [like Wisconsin, hello - the science is in], so be it." Wow. Projection, thy name is garage. Your entire political philosophy is based on your belief and totally ignoring the constant failure of your policies.

Lets add that while it is absolutely right that we have to watch out for excessive numbers of Hero cops, teachers, firefighters and their benefits and pensions to not bloat past what we need...

The same principle applies to our Hero Troops.

We should not have a military that bloats past what we need. We have to question gold-plated military systems and benefits, full retirement after 20, pissing away trillions in nation-building wars not in our and no other country's....Vital Interests.

It is one thing for conservatives to properly question Dem jobs programs like 400,000 new Hero Teachers with more pay and more benefits is JUST WHAT we need....It is another to say they hate all Gummint employees and their various compensations EXCEPT the Hero Troops and their Hero Families......and we need at least 3-4 new wars of nation-building and Freedom For Freedom Lovers in 3rd World Shitholes.

The ongoing financial catastrophe of the last several years is a direct result of the lessening of responsible government management and oversight of the actions of those whose activities make up the economy.

I would argue it was the result of too many people spending more than they earned. Even credit bubbles burst.

Now the complaint is the greedy banks won't lend like they used to. It's like they're underwriting credit risk or something.

The point is, Cookie, the bubble was not caused by a lack of regulations; it was caused by a surfeit of stupid and foolish regulations and a myriad of regulatory agencies stepping on each others' shoelaces, besides the intent of Congress to surretitiously sneak a bunch of cash into the economy and so make everybody rich without causing inflation if everybody could be made to just please not notice all that cash.

It is the proper and necessary role of government to manage the economy.

The ongoing financial catastrophe of the last several years is a direct result of the lessening of responsible government management and oversight of the actions of those whose activities make up the economy. Our lawmakers have capitulated almost entirely to the prerogatives of the financial elites and allowed them to commit great crimes of fraud and theft on the public.

While financial markets and the real economy do overlap; they are not one and the same.

Did corn or other agricultural products (commodities) stop growing when MF Global collapsed?

As my father-in-law once said, when they talk about taxes it’s always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you never heard of.

The ideal: "If not for these regulations, you'd all be eating poisoned meat!"

Reality: EPA's "philosophy of enforcement."

"It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean," he said. "They'd go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw, and they'd crucify them.

"And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years."

It's an established, simple fact - not that you care, or could even comprehend - that public sector jobs drain wealth, rather than create it.

About a billion dollars was taken out of the Wisconsin economy. Any moron that can breathe should know that would have a detrimental effect on the economy. For real, you can't understand that simple concept? Wisconsin is dead last in the country for job creation. This is the right's hero.

You don't care about the economy, you only care about people you don't like getting trampled.

Again Walker huckleberry fan base: What did you get out of this again?

garage mahal said... "Should We Hire Even More Teachers, Cops, and Firemen?"

"Not if we want the economy to recover any time soon," says Nick Gillespie at Reason.com.

One thing I've learned is that people like Gillespie could give a shit if what they believe in even works or not. If it's detrimental to a struggling economy [like Wisconsin, hello - the science is in], so be it. As long as Gillespie and Kaus are able to masturbate over the death of a government job - even if it's replaced by a private sector job that taxpayers have to pay more for. Look at Walker's reign of error in Milwaukee County. Taxpayers are still paying for his fuckups. Oh well!

No. Garage if It's one thing you've learned is that you haven't learned anything.Your adherence to the narrative is comical.Ponder this question. How many private sector jobs does it take to sustain one public sector job?

This. Much of the bloat in education spending is in the proliferation of non-teachers getting a ride on the public gravy train. When I went to elementary school (many, many years ago) there was a principal, secretary and janitor. Now the number of "administrators" is as great or greater than the number of teachers.

In private industry the total cost of an employee runs to 2 to 2.5 times the employees nominal salary. It would not be any less for public employees, and keep in mind that the costs will have to be borne by taxes from actual tax paying citizens.

My favorite quote on this subject. H/T Glenn Reynolds: As my father-in-law once said, when they talk about taxes it’s always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you never heard of.

Yeah, like Glenn Reynolds, state employee of the University of Tennessee law school. And I suspect he has a nice chair in his office, too.

Ponder this question. How many private sector jobs does it take to sustain one public sector job?

For the most part public workers plow it all back into the economy. We lead the midwest in mass layoff events. We're one of only six states where a decline in economic activity is predicted by the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. Why is that do you think?

And while it's interesting to read the simplistic commentary here about how government workers are just a bunch of parasites (to use a term used above) who don't provide value to the economy, anyone who understands how modern mixed economies (like the one the US has had since around the time of Alexander Hamilton) work will tell you that while the private economy creates wealth and is obviously the driver of prosperity, that economy needs an effective government (and the jobs that come with it) to function. Try having a successful economy without good public infrastructure, a working legal system, law enforcement to protect persons and property and an educated populace. Good luck with that.

I'll say one thing for the magic of contemporary conservative propaganda. It lets every drone who works in a stock room or tiny cubicle in a private company to allow himself to think that he is a great Job Creator who provides more value for America than those pointy-headed research scientists, prosecutors, teachers and others who are just taking his taxes!

Oh, government jobs are self-sustaining, really? Then why not just give all the unemployed a good-paying government job - say, GS-12 or so - and watch the economy take off? Why hasn't super-genius Obama proposed this yet, seems like a no-brainer.

And how does the above address the point that government employees are not self-sustaining? It doesn't.

Those county buildings needed security. The taxpayer pays either way: by paying county employees, or paying an out of state and out of country private security firm like Wackenhut. No wonder they basically got rid of the agency that audits costs and performance of work bid out by the state. It ends up costing more in many cases.

And then we had the highly paid CoE engineer who wrote the City Engineer in Rio Rancho, NM an irate letter complaining about City employees working in the "waters of the United States" without a 404 permit. They were cleaning the tumbleweeds and trash out of the borrow ditch along Rio Rancho Blvd. in front of the Intel plant.

About a billion dollars was taken out of the Wisconsin economy. Any moron that can breathe should know that would have a detrimental effect on the economy. For real, you can't understand that simple concept? Wisconsin is dead last in the country for job creation. This is the right's hero.

In Garage's world, reducing the burden on taxpayers by $1 billion is the same as "a billion dollars was taken out of the Wisconsin economy." Apparently the taxpayers wouldn't spend that saving; or they need government to make their spending decisions for them.

garage mahal said... Ponder this question. How many private sector jobs does it take to sustain one public sector job?

For the most part public workers plow it all back into the economy. We lead the midwest in mass layoff events. We're one of only six states where a decline in economic activity is predicted by the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. Why is that do you think?

That isn't the point and you know it.Quit dissemenating.You're either deliberately obtuse or stupid. Which one is it?

One billion dollars were saved from uneconomic uses. We taxpayers are not paying 30 percent more than market rates so our dollars could go to a corrupt teacher's union health care provider/money laundering machine.

As for Wisconsin employement, Wisconsin's job performance was underestimated in surveys and when measured via reports, was positive. You, garbage, would like us to have the 8.5 percent of Illinois, where the unions can still dictate the terms of their employment to corruptocratic politicians.

Anything to say on the fact that Milwaukee Public Schools spend more per pupil than the U of Wisconsin charges for tuition and that it is in the bottom five for performance? Another resounding success of liberal policies!!!!

Woo hoo go for worst in the country. That way we'll have more garbages!

-----It lets every drone who works in a stock room or tiny cubicle in a private company to allow himself to think that he is a great Job Creator who provides more value for America than those pointy-headed research scientists, prosecutors, teachers and others who are just taking his taxes! ----

These weren't stockboys, and by the way did they protect our money in the exchanges????

You'll like this one Garbage, you find masturbation to be an important ideological argument.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to be the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for financial crimes like Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. But the new report, obtained by ABC News, says senior employees of the SEC spent hours on the commission's computers looking at sites like naughty.com, skankwire, youporn, and others.

The investigation, which was conducted by the SEC's internal watchdog at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found 31 serious offenders over the past two and a half years. Seventeen of the offenders were senior SEC officers with salaries ranging from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.

"And while it's interesting to read the simplistic commentary here about how government workers are just a bunch of parasites (to use a term used above) who don't provide value to the economy, anyone who understands how modern mixed economies (like the one the US has had since around the time of Alexander Hamilton) work will tell you that while the private economy creates wealth and is obviously the driver of prosperity, that economy needs an effective government (and the jobs that come with it) to function. Try having a successful economy without good public infrastructure, a working legal system, law enforcement to protect persons and property and an educated populace. Good luck with that.

"I'll say one thing for the magic of contemporary conservative propaganda. It lets every drone who works in a stock room or tiny cubicle in a private company to allow himself to think that he is a great Job Creator who provides more value for America than those pointy-headed research scientists, prosecutors, teachers and others who are just taking his taxes!"

(The LA Times? Really?) The Air Force needs 600 more drone operators and that's a major federal hiring program? They're for active military--the AF has ramped up MOS training. No net job gain or loss. Look at what the RNC says about government jobs lost, and get on board.

One billion dollars were saved from uneconomic uses. We taxpayers are not paying 30 percent more than market rates so our dollars could go to a corrupt teacher's union health care provider/money laundering machine.

I would be completely shocked if the one billion dollar savings claim is even true, or how much of it is even verified, judging the source. I wonder how much of that was offset by fee increases, tuition increases, defending bills in court, etc etc etc. Not to mention the debt refinancing that will cost the state 150 million, the 87 million incurred from changes to the pension system from Act 10.

BTW, since we're throwing around suggestions for unnecessary or unproductive public employees to throw into the streets, how about cutting the military? If we withdraw out troops from our wars of terror abroad, shut down a good portion of our bloated weapons programs, close up most of our military bases around the world, we can save a pretty penny or several billion, (or trillion). (Also, by killing a lot fewer people, we'd terminate one of the major instigators of terrorism directed at the U.S. It'd be a two-fer! Fighting terrorism by spending less money!)

In summary, the changes included in the Joint Finance Committee's budget would decrease net taxes by $23,572,000 ($5,135,000 in 2011-12 and -$28,707,000 in 2012-13) and would increase net fees by $111,340,800 ($37,248,900 in 2011-12 and $74,091,900 in 2012-13). Source

Give tax breaks away to wealthy donors, make the rest of the public pick up the tab. Funny the claim made by Walker that he didn't raise taxes is proven false by the LFB at the link. under: "Tax Increases".

Sure, government employees spend most of the money that they earn, but one of the problems is that they don't spend it all. Moreover, for the most part, they are consuming wealth, and not creating it.

Back when the Dems retook Congress in 2007, the federal government took maybe 20% of GDP, and now takes 25%. That, along with those unemployed, and those working for local governments, are a lot of people not building GDP, just spending it. Which means that those creating wealth must work that much harder.

If government workers could and spend 100% of their wages and salaries immediately upon receipt, then, maybe they would not be as much of a drain on the economy. But, the reality is that they don't, and so there is frictional loss every time that the money cycles around.

You can't spend your way out of a recession by hiring a bunch of government workers. They don't produce wealth, just consume it. What can be done, for very short periods of time, is to move spending forward in time through government spending, including that of hiring more government workers. But, this only works for the short term, because that money comes due, and if we aren't out of the recession by that point, it just makes matters worse, as we found out every time this has been tried, and most noticeably in the Great Depression and the Obama Recession. Lord Keynes apparently understood this - but many of his followers do not, and most notably, the leaders of the Democratic Party, esp. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Definitely not teachers. Don't know about police and fire. There is so much bloat in the public education system, that I think that they should thin it down a lot, before we give them any more money. In some school districts, there are more non-teachers than teachers, and many of them earn more than the teachers that they oversee and assist. Plus, a lot of class time is often spent on BS.

With all three, I would suggest that no more be hired, until they get their benefits, dues, and work rules in line with what the rest of the country has to deal with. We saw in Wisconsin what can happen when the non-safety government employee unions are gotten under control. Absent reform, a lot of state, county, and municipal governments are going to find themselves in dire straights, if they don't already.

Keep in mind that the problem with government and government workers is that they are inefficient, almost by design. One big problem is that since their bottom line is political, and not financial, they often invariably end up with multiple conflicting goals. For example, NASA now has to worry about Muslim outreach, along with getting back into space, keeping the economies of a number of cities and states supported, etc. But, multiple goals, means that the practiced government bureaucrat can often do much as he pleases, following the goals that he likes, and blaming his failure on others to his following the ones he likes. And, often, what they want is a large bureaucracy under them - the more people and money they oversee, the more money they make and the more power they can wield.

And, again as we found out in Wisconsin, often, the government is run primarily for the benefit of the government workers it employees. Many of them seem to see their jobs as a right, and that it is their right to live much better than those who pay their salaries through taxes.

In summary, the changes included in the Joint Finance Committee's budget would decrease net taxes by $23,572,000 ($5,135,000 in 2011-12 and -$28,707,000 in 2012-13) and would increase net fees by $111,340,800 ($37,248,900 in 2011-12 and $74,091,900 in 2012-13). Source

Give tax breaks away to wealthy donors, make the rest of the public pick up the tab. Funny the claim made by Walker that he didn't raise taxes is proven false by the LFB at the link. under: "Tax Increases".

6/23/12 4:14 PM

You can't get a tax break if you don't pay taxes to begin with. Whats wrong with letting people keep more of their money? Progressives: always doing people favors with their money along with doing other people favors with someone else's money. Apply Pareto's Principle and fire the 20% of the absolute deadwood and that will be a great start. The taxpayers pay for services and shouldn't have to pay a dollar more than necessary for those services. They don't owe you a living.

Can you come up with more recent numbers and scandals? Yours are more than 2 years old. -----

Really? There's a statute of limitations for government waste and bloat stories????

I have a better question.

Can you come up with some documentation that anybody was disciplined in that 2 year old scandal? Anybody?

++++++++++++++++

Of course you can't... No accountability in government. Sooooo...

Of course we need to hire many more government employees so we can police and investigate major scandals like this FROM JUST TWO MONTHS ago ...

GSA’s inspector general issued a scathing report Monday that detailed misuse of funds and federal contracting violations over an $823,000 employee training conference GSA held in Las Vegas in October 2010.

“The Las Vegas fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg,” Mica said. He cited billions of dollars of misused funds and 14,000 vacant or underused buildings the government owns.

Since U of Wis just announced a tuition increase, lets also discuss the explosion of administrators at Universities....

consider this: between 1947 and 1995 (the last year for which the relevant data was published), administrative costs increased from barely 9 percent to nearly 15 percent of college and university budgets. More recent data, though not strictly comparable, follows a similar pattern. During this same time period, stated in constant dollars, overall university spending increased 148 percent. Instructional spending increased only 128 percent, 20 points less than the overall rate of spending increase. Administrative spending, though, increased by a whopping 235 percent.

Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent. Arizona State University, for example, increased the number of administrators per 100 students by 94 percent during this period while actually reducing the number of employees engaged in instruction, research and service by 2 percent. Nearly half of all full-time employees at Arizona State University are administrators .

I seriously doubt whether it's worth responding to an entity who goes by "unknown,"--but oh well:

"The SEC inspector general investigated 28 employees and five contractors for accessing inappropriate images and Web sites, according to a report released late last week. Of the employees, eight resigned and six were suspended for periods lasting one to 14 days, the inspector general, H. David Kotz, said in an e-mail. Five were issued formal reprimands, six were issued informal counseling or warning letters, and three are currently facing disciplinary action."